Next Russian tycoon mysteriously passes away

Russian real estate tycoon Dmitry Zelenov passed away earlier this month after tumbling down a flight of stairs while visiting friends on the French Riviera, according to a local outlet and an independent Russian outlet.

The French newspaper Var Matin reported on December 19 that Zelenov, 50, had been dining with friends in Antibes on December 9 when he suddenly became unwell, falling down a flight of stairs, and suffering critical head injuries, reports the Daily Beast. He succumbed while receiving treatment at the Hospital Pasteur in Nice.

Baza, an independent news channel on Telegram, reported that Zelenov had toppled over a railing and hit his head. Authorities informed the oligarch’s friends around 7 am the following morning that he’d died without regaining consciousness.

The channel also said it was “known” that Zelenov had previously undergone vascular surgery for unspecified heart problems.

The Antibes Police Department is currently investigating Zelenov’s cause of death, according to Var Matin.

The 50-year-old was the former owner of Russian developer Don-Stroy, which constructed the 61-story Triumph Palace Tower in Moscow, one of the tallest residential structures in Europe. Before the company fell under the control of Russia’s state-owned bank VTB after succumbing to the 2008 financial crisis, Zelenov’s net worth was estimated at $1.4 billion, landing him on the Forbes list of Russian billionaires.

Zelenov is the latest in a long line of top figures in the Russian oil, gas, technology, and financial sectors to meet suspicious and untimely ends—the most recent being Anatoly Gerashchenko.

The former head of Moscow’s Aviation Institute (MAI), Gerashchenko took a mysterious fall “from a great height” at the organization’s headquarters in September. The institute’s press office called the 73-year-old’s death “the result of an accident.”